Release Date: July 3rd

Genre: Contemporary Romance

It’s easy to lose yourself in someone you love.

Easier to lose yourself in someone you hate…

I didn’t think it could get any worse than having to babysit a bunch of spoiled musicians on set — keeping them out of trouble is a cakewalk compared to seeing my ex every day.

Seaside, Oregon isn’t big enough for the both of us.

She hates me.

I loathe her.

The plan was simple — stay the hell away and make sure she gets to set on time.

What I didn’t expect was to be faced with our past in front of an audience — and be forced to face it again.

It’s torture.

The way she looks at me.

The way I try to look through her.

Words left unsaid.

The lingering aftermath still as powerful as ever.

I feed the chasm between us, for fear that she’ll make me feel again — and steal the last shred of heart I have left.

We have everything but each other.

It’s not enough.

Not when you’ve lost love.

And replaced it with the only thing left — hate.

Excerpt:

I blinked up at the white ceiling, willing the tears to dry. Praying they wouldn’t slip free — because once they were loose there was no stopping the onslaught of emotion that would follow, the devastation, the earth-shattering realization that nothing would ever be the same between us. Not if he could help it — and not with me constantly pushing him.

But at least pushing him got me a reaction that proved he wasn’t a complete indifferent sociopath.

I refused to let him get to me.

With a sigh I turned onto my side and stared out the window imagining a different time a different place, where he was by my side — and promised to never leave.

That and the way his hands ran down my skin like he was getting ready to worship me the way he used to.

Only his face hadn’t been filled with wonder — disgust was more like it.

I clung to the anger like a blanket. It was the only way to sleep, the only way I was able to close my eyes and pray the sickness in my chest away.

Anger forced me to focus on doing my job and getting as far away from my past as possible.

Weakness would just make me sad.

It would make me that — weak;

And I knew where that road led.

It led me directly back to all the things that turned me down that road in the first place.

Not being good enough.

Pretty enough.

Funny enough.

Weakness led me to a false sense of strength.

And my number one weakness had always been Will Sutherland.

It was possible — to give so much of your heart and soul to a person that you lost who you were.

I became a different person with him — a person I thought I needed to be in order to compete in our world. A person our world told me I had no choice but to become in order to stay relevant.

I punched my pillow one last time and attempted to sleep.

Two hours later, when sleep still wouldn’t come, I padded my way into the kitchen and made coffee, then laid my head against the couch and thought about the way his lips felt on my ear.

Inches from my neck.

Breaths from my body.

I ached for him in ways I never knew existed.

And I relished in the ache just like I relished in the anger, because at least that meant it had happened, and at least that meant I knew he was a bad choice I wasn’t willing to make again.

A weakness that wouldn’t just hurt me.

But kill me.

Sometime around one in the morning when the clock on the microwave blinked at me with an intensity that started a pulsing headache to form — I stumbled over to the couch and face planted — the last thought in my head was of the Sutherland Sunset — and how it had once been my anchor until it turned into my hell.

What a joke.

What a cruel joke.

“You made coffee.” Will’s smooth voice interrupted what had been a completely dreamless sleep.

I didn’t have the energy to respond with anything other than a grunt.

“Still not a morning person,” he commented. His footsteps might as well be sledgehammers drilling into the wood floor.

“Why?” I croaked.

The walking stopped. Lights flicked on. I shivered and cursed him to Hell as he poked his head over the couch and had the audacity to smile. “Why what?”

My eyes narrowed. “Talking.”

“Why talking?” He took a sip out of the blue mug I’d been drinking out of earlier that morning; he must have reheated the coffee. “Still really eloquent in the morning I see.” Another annoying sip. The terrorist didn’t even offer me any! Just kept loudly sipping while staring at me with a stupid ass grin on his face like it was a joy to be awake at… wait, what time was it?

I jolted to a sitting position, my pounding headache still wasn’t gone, in fact it was worse, probably brought on by Will’s cheerful demeanor and loud walking. “What time is it?”

“You have twenty minutes until you’re expected on set.” His voice was calm behind me, warm. If I closed my eyes I could almost imagine his body was about to wrap around me like a blanket, I’d tuck my feet under my body and rest my head on his shoulder, we’d share a cup of coffee like we used to and watch the news before work.

It took us one date to become inseparable.

Our trailers side by side.

Cohabitating.

Finishing sentences.

Eating off each other’s plates.

Sharing inside jokes.

Not to mention, Will had been my first.

I shivered as his footsteps moved away from me taking his body right along with them.

That was the past.

It needed to stay there.

With a sigh, I shot up to my feet and started making my way back to my room.

I only made it about one foot before Will started cursing.

Panicked, I froze and then turned around. “What’s wrong?”

His eyes narrowed over the rim of the blue cup, “I’m just trying to decide if you’re doing it on purpose.”

“Doing what?” Okay now I was getting annoyed. And the man wouldn’t stop slurping his coffee as though he didn’t know how to sip like a grown up!

He shrugged one of his shoulders. “Wearing no clothes.”

Read Today!

Meet the Author:

Rachel Van Dyken is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling author of regency and contemporary romances. When she’s not writing you can find her drinking coffee at Starbucks and plotting her next book while watching The Bachelor.

She keeps her home in Idaho with her Husband, adorable son, and two snoring boxers! She loves to hear from readers!

The Director and Don Juan by Katy Regnery is LIVE! FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

From New York Times bestselling author Katy Regnery comes a brand new series set on Blueberry Lane!

The Director and Don Juan is the second of four books about the Philadelphia-based Story sisters who are all on the look-out for love.

Heiress Alice Story left her father’s company three years ago in a blaze of glory, inviting all of his employees to jump ship and join her, but only one accepted her offer: mail room clerk, Carlos Vega.

While Alice spent the next three years getting her own company off the ground, Carlos became her indispensable right-hand man — executive assistant and office manager, loyal counsel and trusted co-worker.

And all the while, they were quietly falling in love with each other.

When Alice is offered a lucrative business deal in Puerto Rico, island-born Carlos is the perfect person to accompany her on her trip as translator, but as they travel together from Philadelphia to Santo Domingo to Ponce, two unlikely co-workers will discover that during their three years working together, their feelings for each other have grown far deeper than they ever could have guessed.

And though business-minded, proper Alice will try her very best to ignore the longings of her heart, scorching hot, insanely sexy Boricua, Carlos, has no intention of letting her go.

★ ★ ★ ★

Reviewed by Emma-Louise on behalf of KFF

What an exhilarating and passionate read! Alice Story and Carlos Vega, two people I would love to sit down and chat over coffee with.

Their stories fascinated and thrilled me. Alice up and left her father’s company three years ago and when she left, she announced anyone who no longer wanted to work for a man like her father could come with her. Only one person took up her offer, Carlos Vega. For three years they worked side by side. One is refusing to admit that they have feelings and the other not daring to hope that their feelings will ever be reciprocated. I adored the will they, won’t they of this book; but at the same time it frustrated me to no end.

“No,” “You’re my employer; it’s none of my business.”

Carlos Vega has become a strong contender for my favourite Book Boyfriend of the year to date. I loved how true to his roots he was, and how he waited for Alice.

“For the record? Your ass beats Ana Maria’s any day and twice on Sunday.”
“Is that right?”
“This is one hundred percent a fact, mami.”
“Mami?”
“It’s slang. Like, sarcastic, truth-slang.”
“So you’re not really calling me ‘mommy’.”
“Alice, when I call you ‘baby’ later, it won’t have nothin’ to do with me seein’ you as a child either.”
“Are you going to call me ‘baby’?”
…“I been there, mami. Just waitin’ for you to come join me.”

In most romance novels there is straight forward method to the story. The Director and Don Juan didn’t follow that path. The starting of Alice and Carlos’ relationship took a considerably large part of the story to get to. Knowing Alice’s back story and her drive to conquer the world, it isn’t hard to believe that she would fight for so long and so hard to ignore her feelings for Carlos. But, for me, this is where things felt a little off. When Alice and Carlos got together and moved forward with their relationship, to me, it seemed as if the book was missing a small chunk. I felt as if I’d had dessert and missed out on the main course. This book as a whole is fantastic and I truly do love reading this author.

“The future isn’t something perfect,The future isn’t something predictable.The best thing you can do is find a partner who loves you and tackle it together.”

About the Author:

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Katy Regnery started her writing career by enrolling in a short story class in January 2012. One year later, she signed her first contract and Katy’s first novel was published in September 2013.

Twenty-five books later, Katy claims authorship of the multi-titled, New York Times and USA Today Blueberry Lane Series, which follows the English, Winslow, Rousseau, Story, and Ambler families of Philadelphia; the six-book, bestselling ~a modern fairytale~ series; and several other standalone novels and novellas.

Katy’s first modern fairytale romance, The Vixen and the Vet, was nominated for a RITA® in 2015 and won the 2015 Kindle Book Award for romance. Katy’s boxed set, The English Brothers Boxed Set, Books #1–4, hit the USA Today bestseller list in 2015, and her Christmas story, Marrying Mr. English, appeared on the list a week later. In May 2016, Katy’s Blueberry Lane collection, The Winslow Brothers Boxed Set, Books #1-4, became a New York Times E-book bestseller.

In 2016, Katy signed a print-only agreement with Spencerhill Press. As a result, her Blueberry Lane paperback books will now be distributed to brick and mortar bookstores all over the United States.

Katy lives in the relative wilds of northern Fairfield County, Connecticut, where her writing room looks out at the woods, and her husband, two young children, two dogs, and one Blue Tonkinese kitten create just enough cheerful chaos to remind her that the very best love stories begin at home.

We have everything but each other.

It’s not enough.

Not when you’ve lost love.

And replaced it with the only thing left — hate.

Read Today!

Meet the Author:

Rachel Van Dyken is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling author of regency and contemporary romances. When she’s not writing you can find her drinking coffee at Starbucks and plotting her next book while watching The Bachelor.

She keeps her home in Idaho with her Husband, adorable son, and two snoring boxers! She loves to hear from readers!